Lou Reed did tai chi, enjoyed the fall on the day he died, wife says

MINEOLA, N.Y., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Lou Reed's wife, Laurie Anderson, says the New York rock icon did tai chi and enjoyed the brilliant autumn colors the day he died at the age of 71.

Anderson penned an open letter in the East Hampton Star to "our neighbors" on Long Island, N.Y.

"What a beautiful fall! Everything shimmering and golden and all that incredible soft light. Water surrounding us," Anderson wrote in a letter published Thursday.

"Lou and I have spent a lot of time here in the past few years, and even though we're city people this is our spiritual home," she said. "Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs. And we made it! Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature. He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air. Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us."

The "Walk on the Wild Side" singer died last Sunday of complications from a liver transplant.

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